Relay transmission method and device

ABSTRACT

Disclosed in the present invention are a relay transmission method and, device, enabling reduction of complexity of relay transmission and a decrease of transmission latency. The method comprises: a relay terminal apparatus receives a first lower-level data frame sent by a transmitting-end apparatus to a receiving-end apparatus, wherein the first lower-layer data frame is obtained by the transmitting-end apparatus by means of processing a MAC PDU carrying identifier information of a remote terminal apparatus; the relay terminal apparatus determines, at the lower layer, whether the first lower layer data frame is required to be forwarded; and the relay terminal apparatus forwards, at the lower layer, the first lower-layer data frame, wherein the transmitting-end apparatus is the remote terminal apparatus, and the receiving-end apparatus is a network apparatus; alternatively, the transmitting-end apparatus is a network apparatus, and the receiving-end apparatus is the remote terminal apparatus.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This is a continuation application or U.S. application Ser. No.16/069,700, filed on Jul. 12, 2018, which is a national phase ofInternational Patent: Application No. PCT/CN2016/077914, filed on Mar.30, 2016, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein byreference in their entireties.

TECHNICAL FIELD

Embodiments of the present disclosure relate to the field ofcommunications, and more particularly to a relay transmission method anddevice.

BACKGROUND

A Device-to-Device (D2D) technology refers to that neighboring terminalequipments may perform data transmission in a direct link manner in ashort-distance range and a network equipment for forwarding is notrequired. A licensed frequency band resource may be shared between D2Dcommunication and a cellular system to form a unified hybridcellular-D2D network. In the hybrid network, part of terminal equipmentmay still work in a cellular communication mode, namely communicatingwith other terminal equipment through network equipment, while part ofterminal equipment may work in a D2D communication mode, namelyperforming direct data transmission with the other terminal equipmentthrough D2D links with the other terminal equipment.

In addition, data transmission between network equipment and terminalequipment may be assisted through a D2D relay, and at this moment, a D2Dcommunication mode is adopted between the D2D relay and a D2D terminal,while a cellular communication mode is used between the D2D relay andthe network equipment. The D2D relay receives and forwards data in ahalf duplex manner, and performs mode switching in a receiving andforwarding process.

In a conventional art, a D2D relay relays data transmission between aD2D terminal and network equipment through an Internet Protocol (IP)layer (i.e., Layer 3 (L3)), and for a received data packet, is requiredto perform de-capsulation processing sequentially through Layer 1 (L1)(i.e., a Physical (PHY) layer), Layer 2 (L2) (including a Media AccessControl (MAC) layer, a Radio Link Control (RLC) layer and a Packet DataConvergence Protocol (PDCP) layer) and L3 and perform encapsulationprocessing sequentially through L3, L2 and L1 to implement datarelaying. Therefore, complexity is relatively high, and a dataprocessing delay is relatively long.

SUMMARY

The embodiments of the present disclosure provide a relay transmissiondevice, which may reduce relay transmission complexity and reduce a datadelay.

A first aspect provides a relay transmission device, which may include areceiver and a processor.

The receiver is configured to receive a first bottom-layer data framewhich is intended to be sent to a receiver equipment by a senderequipment. The first bottom-layer data frame is obtained by the senderequipment by processing through a bottom layer, a Media Access Control(MAC) Protocol Data Unit (PDU) containing identification information ofa remote terminal equipment.

The processor is configured to determine in the bottom layer that thefirst bottom-layer data frame received by the receiver is required to beforwarded and perform forwarding processing on the first bottom-layerdata frame in the bottom layer.

The sender equipment is the remote terminal equipment and the receiverequipment is a network equipment, or the sender equipment is the networkequipment and the receiver equipment is the remote terminal equipment.

A second aspect provides a relay transmission device, which may includea processor and a sender.

The processor is configured to generate a Media Access Control (MAC)Protocol Data Unit (PDU). The MAC PDU contains identificationinformation of a remote terminal equipment.

The sender is configured to send a first bottom-layer data frame, whichis obtained by processing the MAC PDU through a bottom layer, to a relayterminal equipment.

The device is the remote terminal equipment or the device is networkequipment.

A third aspect provides a relay transmission device, which may include areceiver and a processor.

The receiver is configured to receive a second bottom-layer data frameseat by a relay terminal equipment The second bottom-layer data frame isobtained by processing a Media Access Control (MAC) Protocol Data Unit(PDU) containing identification information of a remote terminalequipment through a bottom layer.

The processor is configured to determine in a higher layer that thesecond bottom-layer data frame corresponds to the remote terminalequipment according to the identification information of the remoteterminal equipment contained in the second bottom-layer data framereceived by the receiver.

The device is a network equipment or the device is the remote terminalequipment

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

In order to describe the technical solutions of the embodiments of thepresent disclosure more clearly, the drawings required to be used indescriptions about the embodiments of the present disclosure or theconventional art will be simply introduced below. It is apparent thatthe drawings described below are only some embodiments of the presentdisclosure. Other drawings may further be obtained by those of ordinaryskilled in the art according to these drawings without creative work.

FIG. 1 is a schematic flowchart of a wireless communication system towhich embodiments of the present disclosure are applied.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of an example of a user-plane protocolstack, configured for relay communication, of each equipment accordingto an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 3 is a schematic flowchart of a relay transmission method accordingto an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of an example of a MAC PDU structure in arelay transmission method according to an embodiment of the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 5 is a schematic flowchart of another relay transmission methodaccording to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 6 is a schematic flowchart of another relay transmission methodaccording to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 7 is a schematic block diagram of a device for relay transmissionaccording to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 8 is a schematic block diagram of another device for relaytransmission according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 9 is a schematic block diagram of another device for relaytransmission according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 10 is a schematic block diagram of another device for relaytransmission according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 11 is a schematic block diagram of another device for relaytransmission according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 12 is a schematic block diagram of another device for relaytransmission according to an embodiment of the present disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The technical solutions in the embodiments of the present disclosurewill be clearly and completely described below in combination with thedrawings in the embodiments of the present disclosure. It is apparentthat the described embodiments are not all embodiments but part ofembodiments of the present disclosure. All other embodiments obtained bythose of ordinary skilled in the art on the basis of the embodiments inthe present disclosure without creative work shall fall within the scopeof protection of the present: disclosure.

It is to be understood that terms “system” and “network” in the presentdisclosure may usually be exchanged for use in the present disclosure.Term “and/or” in the present disclosure is only an associationrelationship describing associated objects and represents that threerelationships may exist. For example, A and/or B may represent threeconditions, i.e., independent existence of A, coexistence of A and B andindependent existence of B. In addition, character “/” in the presentdisclosure usually represents that previous and next associated objectsform an “or” relationship.

The embodiments of the disclosure provide at least the followingtechnical solutions.

Solution 1: a relay transmission method, comprising:

receiving, by a relay terminal equipment, a first bottom-layer dataframe which is intended to be sent to a receiver equipment by a senderequipment, wherein the first bottom-layer data frame is obtained by thesender equipment by processing through a bottom layer, a Media AccessControl (MAC) Protocol Data Unit (PDU) containing identificationinformation of a remote terminal equipment:

determining in the bottom layer, by the relay terminal equipment, thatthe first bottom-layer data frame is required to be forwarded: and

performing, by the relay terminal equipment, forwarding processing onthe first bottom-layer data frame in the bottom layer,

wherein the sender equipment is the remote terminal equipment and thereceiver equipment is a network equipment, or the sender equipment isthe network equipment and the receiver equipment is the remote terminalequipment.

Solution 2: the method of solution 1, when the sender equipment is thenetwork equipment, before receiving, by the relay terminal equipment,the first bottom-layer data frame which is intended to be sent to thereceiver equipment by the sender equipment, further comprising:

performing, by the relay terminal equipment, addressing through arelay-specific Radio Network Temporary Identity (RNTI), wherein

determining, by the relay terminal equipment, that the firstbottom-layer data frame is required to be forwarded comprises:

if the first bottom-layer data frame is received by the relay terminalequipment by addressing, determining, by the relay terminal equipment,that the first bottom-layer data frame is required to be forwarded.

Solution 3: the method of solution 1, wherein the first bottom-layerdata frame is sent by the sender equipment by adopting a transmissionresource for relay transmission; and

determining, by the relay terminal equipment, that the firstbottom-layer data frame is required to be forwarded comprises:

determining, by the relay terminal equipment, that the firstbottom-layer data frame is required to be forwarded according to thetransmission resource occupied by the first bottom-layer data frame.

Solution 4: the method of any one of solutions 1-3, wherein theidentification information of the remote terminal equipment comprises aLayer-2 (L2) identifier of the remote terminal equipment or a terminalequipment identifier of the remote terminal equipment.

Solution 5; the method of any one of solutions 1-4, wherein a bottomlayer of the network equipment is a Physical (PHY) layer, and a bottomlayer of the remote terminal equipment corresponds to a technologyadopted for Device-to-Device (D2D) communication between the remoteterminal equipment and the relay terminal equipment.

Solution 6: the method of any one of solutions 1-5, wherein theidentification information of the remote terminal equipment is born in aMAC Control Element (CE) field of the MAC PDU.

Solution 7: the method of any one of solutions 1-6, when the senderequipment is the remote terminal equipment and the receiver equipment isthe network equipment, before performing, by the relay terminalequipment, forwarding processing on the first bottom-layer data frame inthe bottom layer, further comprising:

determining in the bottom layer, by the relay terminal equipment, aPhysical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) resource corresponding to a datavolume contained in the first bottom-layer data frame according tocorrespondences between PUCCH resources and data volumes orcorrespondences between PUCCH resources and data volume ranges; and

adopting, by the relay terminal equipment, the PUCCH resource to send ascheduling request to the network equipment.

Solution 8: the method of any one of solutions 1-6, when the senderequipment is the remote terminal equipment and the receiver equipment isthe network equipment, before performing, by the relay terminalequipment, forwarding processing on the first bottom-layer data frame inthe bottom layer, further comprising:

determining in the bottom layer, by the relay terminal equipment, apreamble corresponding to the data volume contained in the firstbottom-layer data frame according to correspondences between preamblesand data volumes or correspondences between preambles and data volumeranges; and

sending, by the relay terminal equipment, the preamble to the networkequipment, the preamble being configured for the network equipment toallocate an uplink transmission resource to the relay terminalequipment.

Solution 9: the method of any one of solutions 1-8, wherein performing,by the relay terminal equipment, forwarding processing on the firstbottom-layer data frame in the bottom layer comprises:

performing, by the relay terminal equipment, decoding processing on thefirst bottom-layer data frame to obtain data contained in the firstbottom-layer data frame;

performing, by the relay terminal equipment, coding processing on thedata to obtain a second bottom-layer data frame; and

sending, by the relay terminal equipment, the second bottom-layer dataframe.

Solution 10: the method of any one of solutions 1-8, wherein performing,by the relay terminal equipment, forwarding processing on the fiatbottom-layer data frame in the bottom layer comprises:

directly sending, by the relay terminal equipment, the firstbottom-layer data frame through the bottom layer.

Solution 11: a relay transmission method, comprising:

generating, by a sender equipment, a Media Access Control (MAC) ProtocolData Unit (PDU), wherein the MAC PDU contains identification informationof a remote terminal equipment; and

sending, by the sender equipment, a first bottom-layer data frame, whichis obtained by processing the MAC PDU through a bottom layer, to a relayterminal equipment,

wherein the sender equipment is the remote terminal equipment or thesender equipment is a network equipment.

Solution 12: the method of solution 11, when the sender equipment is thenetwork equipment, before sending, by the sender equipment, the firstbottom-layer data frame to the relay terminal equipment, furthercomprising:

sending, by the network equipment, a Physical Downlink Control Channel(PDCCH) to the relay terminal equipment, wherein the PDCCH is configuredto schedule the first bottom-layer data frame, and the PDCCH isscrambled by adopting a relay-specific Radio Network Temporary Identity(RNTI).

Solution 13: the method of solution 11, wherein sending, by the senderequipment, the first bottom-layer data frame to the relay terminalequipment comprises:

adopting, by the sender equipment, a transmission resource for relaytransmission to send the first bottom-layer data frame to the relayterminal equipment.

Solution 14: the method of any one of solutions 11-13, wherein theidentification information of the remote terminal equipment comprises aLayer-2 (L2) identifier of the remote terminal equipment or a terminalequipment identifier of the remote terminal equipment.

Solution 15: the method of any one of solutions 11-14, wherein a bottomlayer of the network equipment is a Physical (PHY) layer, and a bottomlayer of the remote terminal equipment corresponds to a technologyadopted for Device-to-Device (D2D) communication between the remoteterminal equipment and the relay terminal equipment.

Solution 16: the method of any one of solutions 11-15, wherein theidentification information of the remote terminal equipment is born in aMAC Control Element (CE) field of the MAC PDU.

Solution 17: a relay transmission method, comprising:

receiving, by a receiver equipment, a second bottom-layer data framesent by a relay terminal equipment, wherein the second bottom-layer dataframe is obtained by processing a Media Access Control (MAC) ProtocolData Unit (PDU) containing identification information of a remoteterminal equipment through a bottom layer; and

determining in a higher layer, by the receiver equipment, that thesecond bottom-layer data frame corresponds to the remote terminalequipment according to the identification information of the remoteterminal equipment,

wherein the receiver equipment is a network equipment or the receiverequipment is the remote terminal equipment.

Solution 18: the method of solution 17, wherein receiving, by thereceiver equipment, the second bottom-layer data frame sent by the relayterminal equipment comprises:

receiving, by the receiver equipment, the second bottom-layer data framesent try the relay terminal equipment by adopting a transmissionresource for relay transmission; and

the method further comprises:

determining, by the receiver equipment, that the second bottom-layerdata frame has been forwarded by the relay terminal equipment accordingto the transmission resource occupied by the second bottom-layer dataframe.

Solution 19; the method of solution 17 or 18, further comprising:

when the receiver equipment is the network equipment:, determining, bythe network equipment, a data transmission tunnel corresponding to theremote terminal equipment; and

sending, by the network equipment, data contained in the secondbottom-layer data frame to a core network equipment through thecorresponding data transmission tunnel.

Solution 20: the method of any one of solutions 17-19, wherein theidentification information of the remote terminal equipment comprises aLayer-2 (L2) identifier of the remote terminal equipment or a terminalequipment identifier of the remote terminal equipment.

Solution 21: the method of any one of solutions 17-20, wherein a bottomlayer of the network equipment is a Physical (PHY) layer, and a bottomlayer of the remote terminal equipment corresponds to a technologyadopted for Device-to-Device (D2D) communication between the remoteterminal equipment and the relay terminal equipment.

Solution 22: the method of any one of solutions 17-21, wherein theidentification information of the remote terminal equipment is born in aMAC Control Element (CE) field of the MAC PDU.

Solution 23: the method of any one of solutions 17-22, when the receiverequipment is the network equipment, before receiving, by the receiverequipment, the second bottom-layer data frame sent by the relay terminalequipment, further comprising:

receiving, by the network equipment, a scheduling request sent by therelay terminal equipment;

determining, by the network equipment, a data volume or data volumerange corresponding to a Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH)resource occupied by the scheduling request according to correspondencesbetween PUCCH resources and data volumes or correspondences betweenPUCCH resources and data volume ranges; and

allocating, by the network equipment, an uplink transmission resource tothe relay terminal equipment according to the data volume or data volumerange.

Solution 24: the method of any one of solutions 17-22, when the receiverequipment is the network equipment, before receiving, by the receiverequipment, the second bottom-layer data frame sent by the relay terminalequipment, further comprising:

receiving, by the network equipment, a preamble sent by the relayterminal equipment;

determining, by the network equipment, a data volume or data volumerange corresponding to the received preamble according tocorrespondences between preambles and data volumes or correspondencesbetween preambles and data volume ranges; and

allocating, by the network equipment, the uplink transmission resourceto the relay terminal equipment according to the data volume or datavolume range.

Solution 25: a relay transmission device, comprising:

a receiving unit, configured to receive a first bottom-layer data framewhich is intended to be sent to a receiver equipment by a senderequipment, wherein the first bottom-layer data frame is obtained by thesender equipment by processing through a bottom layer, a Media AccessControl (MAC) Protocol Data Unit (PDU) containing identificationinformation of a remote terminal equipment; and

a processing unit, configured to determine in the bottom layer that thefirst bottom-layer data frame received by the receiving unit is requiredto be forwarded and perform forwarding processing on the firstbottom-layer data frame in the bottom layer,

wherein the sender equipment is the remote terminal equipment and thereceiver equipment is a network equipment, or the sender equipment isthe network equipment and the receiver equipment is the remote terminalequipment.

Solution 26: the device of solution 25, wherein when the senderequipment is the network equipment,

the processing unit is further configured to, before the receiving unitreceives the first bottom-layer data frame which is intended to be sentto the receiver equipment by the sender equipment, perform addressingthrough a relay-specific. Radio Network Temporary Identity (RNTI); and

the processing unit is configured to, if the first bottom-layer dataframe is received by relay terminal equipment by addressing, determine,by the relay terminal equipment, that the first bottom-layer data frameis required to be forwarded.

Solution 27: the device of solution 25, wherein the first bottom-layerdata frame is sent by the sender equipment by adopting a transmissionresource for relay transmission; and

the processing unit is configured to determine that the firstbottom-layer data frame is required to be forwarded according to thetransmission resource occupied by the first bottom-layer data frame.

Solution 28: the device of any one of solutions 25-27, wherein theidentification information of the remote terminal equipment comprises aLayer-2 (L2) identifier of the remote terminal equipment or a terminalequipment identifier of the remote terminal equipment.

Solution 29: the device of any one of solutions 25-28, wherein a bottomlayer of the network equipment is a Physical (PHY) layer, and a bottomlayer of the remote terminal equipment corresponds to a technologyadopted for Device-to-Device (D2D) communication between the remoteterminal equipment and the relay terminal equipment.

Solution 30: the device of any one of solutions 25-29, wherein theidentification information of the remote terminal equipment is born in aMAC Control Element (CE) field of the MAC PDU.

Solution 31: the device of any one of solutions 25-30, wherein when thesender equipment is the remote terminal equipment and the receiverequipment is the network equipment, the processing unit is furtherconfigured to, before performing forwarding processing on the firstbottom-layer data frame in the bottom layer, determine a Physical UplinkControl Channel (PUCCH) resource corresponding to a data volumecontained in the first bottom-layer data frame in the bottom layeraccording to correspondences between PUCCH resources and data volumes orcorrespondences between PUCCH resources and data volume ranges; and

the device further comprises: a first sending unit, configured to adoptthe PUCCH resource determined by the processing unit to send ascheduling request to the network equipment.

Solution 32: the device of any one of solutions 25-30, wherein when thesender equipment is the remote terminal equipment and the receiverequipment is the network equipment, the processing unit is furtherconfigured to, before performing forwarding processing on the firstbottom-layer data frame in the bottom layer, determine a preamblecorresponding to the data volume contained in the first bottom-layerdata frame in the bottom layer according to correspondences betweenpreambles and data volumes or correspondences between preambles and datavolume ranges; and

the device further comprises: a first sending unit, configured to sendthe preamble to the network equipment, the preamble being configured forthe network equipment to allocate an uplink transmission resource to therelay terminal equipment.

Solution 33: the device of any one of solutions 25-32, wherein theprocessing unit is configured to perform decoding processing on thefirst bottom-layer data frame to obtain data contained in the firstbottom-layer data frame and perform coding processing on the data toobtain a second bottom-layer data frame; and

the device further comprises: a second sending unit configured to sendthe second bottom-layer data frame obtained by the processing unit.

Solution 34: the device of any one of solutions 25-33, furthercomprising: a second sending unit, wherein the processing unit isconfigured to directly send the first bottom-layer data frame throughthe second sending unit in the bottom layer.

Solution 35: a device for relay transmission, comprising:

a processing unit, configured to generate a Media Access Control (MAC)Protocol Data Unit (PDU), wherein the MAC PDU contains identificationinformation of a remote terminal equipment; and

a sending unit, configured to send a first bottom-layer data frame,which is obtained by processing the MAC PDU through a bottom layer, to arelay terminal equipment,

wherein the device is the remote terminal equipment or the device isnetwork equipment.

Solution 36; the device of solution 35, wherein when the device is thenetwork equipment, the sending unit is further configured to, beforesending the first bottom-layer data frame to the relay terminalequipment, send a Physical Downlink Control Channel (PDCCH) to the relayterminal equipment, wherein the PDCCH is configured to schedule thefirst bottom-layer data frame, and the PDCCH is scrambled by adopting arelay-specific Radio Network Temporary Identity (RNTI).

Solution 37: the device of solution 35, wherein the sending unit isconfigured to adopt a transmission resource for relay transmission tosend the first bottom-layer data frame to the relay terminal equipment.

Solution 38: the device of any one of solutions 35-37, wherein theidentification information of the remote terminal equipment comprises aLayer-2 (L2) identifier of the remote terminal equipment or a terminalequipment identifier of the remote terminal equipment.

Solution 39: the device of any one of solutions 35-38, wherein theidentification information of the remote terminal equipment is born in aMAC Control Element (CE) field of the MAC PDU.

Solution 40: a device for relay transmission, comprising:

a receiving unit, configured to receive a second bottom-layer data framesent by a relay terminal equipment, wherein the second bottom-layer dataframe is obtained by processing a Media Access Control (MAC) ProtocolData Unit (PDU) containing identification information of a remoteterminal equipment through a bottom layer; and

a processing unit, configured to determine in a higher layer that thesecond bottom-layer data frame corresponds to the remote terminalequipment according to the identification information of the remoteterminal equipment contained in the second bottom-layer data framereceived by the receiving unit,

wherein the device is a network equipment or the device is the remoteterminal equipment.

Solution 41: the device of solution 40, wherein the receiving unit isconfigured to receive the second bottom-layer data frame sent by therelay terminal equipment by adopting a transmission resource for relaytransmission; and

the processing unit is configured to determine that the secondbottom-layer data frame has been forwarded by the relay terminalequipment according to the transmission resource occupied by the secondbottom-layer data frame.

Solution 42: the device of solution 40 or 41, wherein when the device isthe network equipment, the processing unit is further configured todetermine a data transmission tunnel corresponding to the remoteterminal equipment; and

the device further comprises: a sending unit configured to send datacontained in the second bottom-layer data frame to a core networkequipment through the corresponding data transmission tunnel determinedby the processing unit.

Solution 43: the device of any one of solutions 40-42, wherein theidentification information of the remote terminal equipment comprises aLayer-2 (L2) identifier of the remote terminal equipment or a terminalequipment identifier of the remote terminal equipment.

Solution 44: the device of any one of solutions 40-43, wherein theidentification information of the remote terminal equipment is born in aMAC Control Element (CE) field of the MAC PDU.

Solution 45: the device of any one of solutions 40-44, wherein when thedevice is the network equipment, the receiving unit is furtherconfigured to, before receiving the second bottom-layer data frame sentby the relay terminal equipment, receive a scheduling request sent bythe relay terminal equipment; and

the processing unit is further configured to determine a data volume ordata volume range corresponding to a Physical Uplink Control Channel(PUCCH) resource occupied by the scheduling request received by thereceiving unit according to correspondences between PUCCH resources anddata volumes or correspondences between PUCCH resources and data volumeranges and allocate an uplink transmission resource to the relayterminal equipment according to the data volume or data volume range.

Solution 46; the device of any one of solutions 40-44, wherein when thedevice is the network equipment, the receiving unit is furtherconfigured to, before receiving the second bottom-layer data frame sentby the relay terminal equipment, receive a preamble sent by the relayterminal equipment; and

the processing unit is further configured to determine a data volume ordata volume range corresponding to the preamble received by thereceiving unit according to correspondences between preambles and datavolumes or correspondences between preambles and data volume ranges andallocate the uplink transmission resource to the relay terminalequipment according to the data volume or data volume range.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a wireless communication system 100 towhich embodiments of the present disclosure are applied. The wirelesscommunication system 100 may include at least one network equipment 110.The network equipment 110 may be equipment communicating with terminalequipment. Each network equipment 110 may provide communication coveragefor a specific geographic region and may communicate with terminalequipment located in the coverage. The network equipment 110 may be aBase Transceiver Station (BTS) in a Global System for Mobilecommunications (GSM) or a Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) system,may also be a NodeB (NB) in a Wideband Code Division Multiple Access(WCDMA) system, and may further be an Evolutional Node B (eNB or eNodeB)in a Long Term Evolution (LTE) system, or a radio controller in a CloudRadio Access Network (CRAN), or the network equipment may be a relaystation, an access point, vehicle-mounted equipment, wearable equipment,network-side equipment in a future 5th-Generation (5G) network, networkequipment in a future evolved Public Land Mobile Network (PLMN) and thelike.

The wireless communication system 100 further includes multiple terminalequipments 120 located in the coverage of the network equipment 110. Theterminal equipment 120 may be mobile or fixed. The terminal equipment120 may refer to an access terminal, User Equipment (UE), a user unit, auser station, a mobile station, a mobile radio station, a remotestation, a remote terminal, mobile equipment, a user terminal, aterminal, wireless communication equipment, a user agent or a userdevice. The access terminal may be a cell phone, a cordless phone, aSession Initiation Protocol (SIP) phone, a Wireless Local Loop (WLL)station, a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), handheld equipment with awireless communication function, computing equipment or other processingequipment connected to a wireless modem, vehicle-mounted equipment,wearable equipment, terminal equipment in the future 5G network,terminal equipment in the future evolved PLMN and the like.

FIG. 1 exemplarily shows one network equipment and six terminalequipments. Optionally, the wireless communication system 100 mayinclude multiple network equipments and other numbers of terminalequipment may be included in coverage of each network equipment. Thereare no limits made in the embodiment of the present disclosure. Inaddition, the wireless communication system 100 may further includeanother network entity such as a Mobile Management Entity (MME), aServing Gateway (S-GW) and a Packet Data Network Gateway (P-GW), but theembodiment of the present disclosure is not limited thereto.

Specifically, the terminal equipment 120 may perform communication in acellular communication mode or a D2D communication mode. Here, in thecellular communication mode, the terminal equipment may communicate withthe other terminal equipment through the network equipment; and in theD2D communication mode, the terminal equipment may directly communicatewith the other terminal equipment through a D2D link.

The multiple terminal equipments 120 shown in FIG. 1 include cellularterminal equipment, D2D terminal equipment and relay terminal equipment.Here, the cellular terminal equipment adopts a cellular communicationtechnology to communicate with the network equipment 110, and the D2Dterminal equipment implements data transmission with the networkequipment through the relay terminal equipment. Here, between the relayterminal equipment and the D2D terminal equipment, there is a PC5interface and a D2D communication technology is adopted forcommunication. Here, the D2D communication technology may specificallybe a SideLink (SL) technology in LTE and may also be a technology suchas Wireless Fidelity (WIFI) or Bluetooth to WLAN or another D2Dcommunication technology, which is not limited thereto in the embodimentof the present disclosure; and between the relay terminal equipment andthe network equipment, there is a Uu interface and the cellularcommunication technology is adopted for communication.

In the conventional art, the relay terminal equipment adopts an L3 relaymanner for relaying, data processing complexity is relatively high, anda processing delay is relatively long. In the embodiment of the presentdisclosure, the relay terminal equipment may adopt a bottom-layer relaymanner to relay data transmission between the network equipment and theD2D terminal equipment. Here, for an LTE system, a bottom layer of thenetwork equipment refers to L1, i.e., a PHY layer, and a bottom layer ofthe D2D terminal equipment depends on a D2D communication technologyadopted for the D2D terminal equipment and the relay terminal equipment.For example, if the D2D communication technology is the SL technology ofLTE, the bottom layer may specifically be a PHY layer, and if the D2Dcommunication technology is a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) orother communication technology, the bottom layer may specifically haveanother name. The embodiment of the present disclosure is not limitedthereto.

In the embodiment of the present disclosure, data transmission on bothof the Uu interface and the PC5 interface may be implemented through thePHY layer. Optionally, when the network equipment or the remote terminalequipment is required to send data to each other, the data to be sentmay be encapsulated into a MAC PDU, for example, a MAC PDU, at first,then the MAC PDU is processed through the bottom layer to obtain abottom-layer data frame, and the bottom-layer data frame is sent to therelay terminal equipment. FIG. 2 schematically shows an example of auser-plane protocol stack, configured for relay transmission, of eachequipment. Here, a user-plane protocol stack, configured for relaytransmission, of the relay terminal equipment may only include L1 (i.e.,a PHY layer), and a user-plane protocol stack of each of the remoteterminal equipment and the network equipment may include L1, L2 and L3.L1 of the relay terminal equipment may be an equivalent layer of L1 ofthe remote terminal equipment and L1 of the network equipment. And L2 ofthe remote terminal equipment may be an equivalent layer of L2 of thenetwork equipment. In such case, the relay terminal equipment mayoptionally not identify the remote terminal equipment corresponding tothe received bottom-layer data frame, while the remote terminalequipment and the network equipment identify the remote terminalequipment corresponding to the received data frame in higher layers (forexample, MAC layers or higher layers). However, there are no limits madein the embodiment of the present disclosure.

For convenient description, descriptions will be made in the followingembodiments mainly with the condition that the bottom layer isspecifically the PHY layer as an example. However, those skilled in theart should know that, if the D2D communication technology adoptedbetween the D2D terminal equipment (which may also be called as remoteterminal equipment) and the relay terminal equipment is the othercommunication technology, the bottom layer may specifically have theother name. There are no limits made in the embodiment of the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 3 schematically shows a relay transmission method 200 according toan embodiment of the present disclosure. The method 200 may be appliedto the abovementioned wireless communication system 100, but theembodiment of the present disclosure is not limited thereto.Specifically, the method 200 may be applied to relay transmission ofuplink data, that is, remote terminal equipment transmits the uplinkdata to network equipment through relay terminal equipment. In suchcase, sender equipment is specifically the remote terminal equipment(which may also be called as D2D terminal equipment) and receiverequipment is specifically the network equipment. Optionally, the method200 may also be applied to relay transmission of downlink data, that is,the network equipment transmits the downlink data to the remote terminalequipment through the relay terminal equipment. In such case, the senderequipment is the network equipment and the receiver equipment is theremote terminal equipment. However, there are no limits made in theembodiment of the present disclosure.

In S210, the sender equipment generates a MAC PDU, the MAC PDUcontaining identification information of the remote terminal equipment.

When determining, that data is required to be sent to the receiverequipment, the sender equipment may perform encapsulation processing onthe data in a higher layer to obtain the MAC PDC. Here, the MAC PDU maycontain the identification information of the remote terminal equipment.The identification information of the remote terminal equipment may beconfigured to identify the remote terminal equipment.

Optionally, the identification information of the remote terminalequipment may include a terminal equipment identifier of the remoteterminal equipment. The terminal equipment identifier may be configuredto uniquely identify the remote terminal equipment. The terminalequipment identifier may be predefined. For example, the terminalequipment identifier may specifically be an equipment identifier of theremote terminal equipment, a user identifier of the remote terminalequipment or the like. Optionally, the identification information of theremote terminal equipment may further include a specific identifier ofthe remote terminal equipment, and the specific identifier of the remoteterminal equipment is configured to uniquely identify the remoteterminal equipment during relay transmission. The specific identifiermay be predefined and may also be configured by the network equipment. Alength of the specific identifier may be smaller than a length of theterminal equipment identifier, so that a signaling overhead is reduced.The remote terminal equipment and the network equipment may identify thespecific identifier in the higher layer. Here, the higher layer mayrefer to a layer located above the bottom layer, for example, L2 or L3,and there are no limits made in the embodiment of the presentdisclosure. For example, the specific identifier may be an L2identifier. The L2 identifier may be an identifier encapsulated andparsed in L2, and for example, is identified in a MAC layer, an RLClayer or a PDCP layer. Optionally, the L2 identifier may be predefinedor allocated to the remote terminal equipment by the network equipment.For example, the L2 identifier is allocated to the remote terminalequipment by the network equipment in a process of establishing a bearerfor the remote terminal equipment.

The identification information of the remote terminal equipment may beborn at any possible position of the MAC PDU. Optionally, theidentification information of the remote terminal equipment may be bornin a MAC CE of the MAC PDU, and the MAC CE may be an existing MAC CE oran additional MAC CE, for example, as shown in FIG. 4. However, thereare no limits made in the embodiment of the present disclosure.

In S220, the sender equipment processes the MAC PDU through a bottomlayer (for example, a PHY layer) to generate a first bottom-layer dataframe.

The sender equipment may transmit the MAC PDU to the bottom forprocessing and send the processed MAC PDU to the relay terminalequipment through the bottom layer. Optionally, the sender equipment mayset the first bottom-layer data frame to enable the relay terminalequipment to determine that the first bottom-layer data frame containsrelay data and is required to be forwarded. Alternatively, the senderequipment may adopt a transmission resource for relay transmission oranother manner to send the first bottom-layer data frame to enable therelay terminal equipment to determine that the first bottom layer dataframe contains the relay data according to the transmission resource.There are no limits made in the embodiment of the present disclosure.For example, the network equipment configures the transmission resourcefor relay transmission to the relay terminal equipment. In such case,when the network equipment is required to send data to the remoteterminal equipment, the transmission resource for relay transmission maybe adopted to send the data to the relay terminal equipment.Alternatively, the network equipment configures the transmissionresource for relay transmission to the remote terminal equipment. Insuch case, when the remote terminal equipment is required to send datato the network equipment, the transmission resource for relaytransmission may be adopted to send the data to the relay terminalequipment. However, the embodiment of the present disclosure is notlimited thereto.

In S230, the sender equipment sends the first bottom-layer data frame tothe relay terminal equipment.

in S240, after receiving the first bottom-layer data frame sent by thesender equipment through the bottom layer, the relay terminal equipmentmay determine that the first bottom-layer data frame is required to beforwarded in the bottom layer.

Optionally, if the first bottom-layer data frame is sent by the senderequipment by adopting the transmission resource for relay transmission,the relay terminal equipment may determine that the first bottom-layerdata frame contains the relay data and is required to be forwarded inthe bottom layer according to, the transmission resource occupied by thefirst bottom-layer data frame.

Optionally, the relay terminal equipment may adopt a relay-specific RNTIfor addressing. Here, the relay-specific RNTI corresponds to relaytransmission. Optionally, the relay-specific RNTI may be predefined orpre-allocated by the network equipment, which is not limited thereto inthe embodiment of the present disclosure. If the relay terminalequipment receives a PDCCH configured to schedule the first bottom-layerdata frame by adopting the relay-specific RNTI for addressing, that is,the PDCCH configured to schedule the first bottom-layer data frame isscrambled by adopting the relay-specific RNTI, the relay terminalequipment may determine that the first bottom-layer data frame containsthe relay data and is required to be forwarded according to therelay-specific RNTI. However, the embodiment of the present disclosureis not limited thereto.

Optionally, the relay terminal equipment may further determine that thereceived bottom-layer data frame is sent to it or is required to berelayed and forwarded in another manner, which is not limited thereto inthe embodiment of the present disclosure.

In S250, the relay terminal equipment performs forwarding processing onthe first bottom-layer data frame in the bottom layer.

When the relay terminal equipment determines that the first bottom-layerdata frame contains the relay data and is required to be relayed andforwarded, the relay terminal equipment may optionally not performdecoding processing on the first bottom-layer data frame, and instead,directly sends the first bottom-layer data frame through the bottomlayer. Alternatively, the relay terminal equipment may perform decodingprocessing on the first bottom-layer data frame in the bottom layer toobtain data contained in the first bottom-layer data frame and send thedata contained in the first bottom-layer data frame through the bottomlayer. Specifically, the relay terminal equipment may perform codingprocessing on the data obtained by decoding processing to obtain asecond bottom-layer data frame and send the second bottom-layer dataframe through the bottom layer. However, the embodiment of the presentdisclosure is not limited thereto.

Optionally, if the receiver equipment is the remote terminal equipment,the relay terminal equipment does not identify the remote terminalequipment corresponding to the data contained in the first bottom-layerdata frame. Optionally, the relay terminal equipment may send the datacontained in the first bottom-layer data frame (which may specificallybe the first bottom-layer data frame or the second bottom-layer dataframe) in a broadcast form. For example, the relay terminal equipmentmay send the data contained in the first bottom-layer data frame throughthe transmission resource for relay transmission. However, theembodiment of the present disclosure is not limited thereto.

Optionally, when the receiver equipment is the network equipment, therelay terminal equipment may send the data contained in the firstbottom-layer data frame to the network equipment. Here, the relayterminal equipment may optionally send the first bottom-layer data frameor the second bottom-layer data frame to the network equipment throughthe transmission resource for relay transmission. However, theembodiment of the present disclosure is not limited thereto.

Optionally, before sending the first bottom-layer data frame or thesecond bottom-layer data frame to the network equipment, the relayterminal equipment may further initiate an uplink grant request flow torequest for an uplink transmission resource and adopt the uplinktransmission resource allocated by the network equipment to send thefirst bottom-layer data frame or the second bottom-layer data frame tothe network equipment. Here, the relay terminal equipment may optionallydetermine a data volume contained in the first bottom-layer data frame.For example, the relay terminal equipment may perform decodingprocessing on the first bottom-layer data frame in the bottom layer toobtain the data volume contained in the first bottom-layer data frame.Alternatively, the first bottom-layer data frame may contain indicationinformation configured to indicate the data volume contained in thefirst bottom-layer data frame. A manner in which the relay terminalequipment determines the data volume contained in the first bottom-layerdata frame is not limited thereto in the embodiment of the presentdisclosure.

Optionally, the relay terminal equipment may initiate an uplink grantrequest according to the data volume contained in the first bottom-layerdata frame. As an optional embodiment, a corresponding relationship mayexist between a PUCCH resource and a preset data volume or a preset datavolume range. Here, the corresponding relationship may be predefined orpreconfigured by the network equipment. For example, the networkequipment may preconfigure the corresponding relationship throughbroadcast signaling or dedicated signaling, which is not limited theretoin the embodiment of the present disclosure. In such case, the relayterminal equipment may determine a target PUCCH resource according tothe data volume contained in the first bottom-layer data frame and thecorresponding relationship between the PUCCH resource and the presetdata volume or the preset data volume range and adopt the target PUCCHresource to send a scheduling request to the network equipment. However,the embodiment of the present disclosure is not limited thereto.

At this moment, after receiving the scheduling request, the networkequipment may determine a data volume or data volume range correspondingto the scheduling request according to the PUCCH resource occupied bythe scheduling request and allocate the uplink transmission resourceaccording to the data volume or data volume range. However, theembodiment of the present disclosure is not limited thereto.

As another optional embodiment, the relay terminal equipment sends apreamble to the network equipment to initiate the uplink grant request.Optionally, a corresponding relationship may exist between a preambleand a preset data volume or a preset data volume range. Here, thecorresponding relationship may be predefined or preconfigured by thenetwork equipment. For example, the network equipment may preconfigurethe corresponding relationship through broadcast signaling or dedicatedsignaling, which is not limited thereto in the embodiment of the presentdisclosure. In such case, the relay terminal equipment may determine atarget preamble according to the data volume contained in the firstbottom-layer data frame and the corresponding relationship between thepreamble and the preset data volume or the preset data volume range andsend the target preamble to the network equipment. However, theembodiment of the present disclosure is not limited thereto.

At this moment, after receiving the preamble, the network equipment maydetermine a data volume or data volume range corresponding to thepreamble and allocate the uplink transmission resource according to thedata volume or data volume range. However, the embodiment of the presentdisclosure is not limited thereto.

Optionally, the relay terminal equipment may further initiate the uplinkgrant request in another manner, which is not limited thereto in theembodiment of the present disclosure.

In S250, when receiving the first bottom-layer data frame or secondbottom-layer data frame sent by the relay terminal equipment, thereceiver equipment may determine the remote terminal equipmentcorresponding to the first bottom-layer data frame or the secondbottom-layer data frame in the higher layer according to theidentification information, contained in the first bottom-layer dataframe or the second bottom-layer data frame, of the remote terminalequipment.

Optionally, the remote terminal equipment receiving the firstbottom-layer data frame or second bottom-layer data frame sent by therelay terminal equipment may identify the identification information,contained in the data frame, of the remote terminal equipment in thehigher layer (for example, L2) to determine whether the data frame issent to the remote terminal equipment. When it is determined that thedata frame is sent to the remote terminal equipment, the remote terminalequipment may perform decoding processing on the data frame. When it isdetermined that the data frame is not sent to the remote terminalequipment, the remote terminal equipment may discard the data frame.However, there are no limits made in the embodiment of the presentdisclosure.

Optionally, when receiving the first bottom-layer data frame or secondbottom-layer data frame sent by the relay terminal equipment, thereceiver equipment may identify the identification information,contained in the data frame, of the remote terminal equipment in thehigher layer (for example, L2) to determine the remote terminalequipment corresponding to the data frame and send the data contained inthe data frame to a core network equipment according to thecorresponding remote terminal equipment. For example, if a datatransmission channel (for example, a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS)Tunneling Protocol (GTP) tunnel) of the remote terminal equipment isestablished between the network equipment and the core network equipment(for example, a P-GW), the network equipment may send the data containedin the data frame to the core network equipment through the datatransmission channel corresponding to the remote terminal equipment.However, the embodiment of the present disclosure is not limitedthereto.

Optionally, before relay transmission, the network equipment may furtherestablish a bearer for the remote terminal equipment. For example, thedata transmission channel (for example, the GTP tunnel) of the remoteterminal equipment may be established between the network equipment andthe P-GW and a radio bearer of the remote terminal equipment may beestablished between the network equipment and the relay terminalequipment. However, the embodiment of the present disclosure is notlimited thereto.

Optionally, the relay terminal equipment may receive a connectionestablishment request of the remote terminal equipment, the connectionestablishment request being configured to request for establishment of aD2D communication link between the relay terminal equipment and theremote terminal equipment. Optionally, the connection establishmentrequest may specifically be a direct communication request configured torequest for establishment of a PC5 connection with the relay terminalequipment.

The relay terminal equipment may send a bearer establishment request tothe core network equipment according to the connection establishmentrequest, and the bearer establishment request may contain the terminalequipment identifier of the remote terminal equipment. Optionally, thecore network equipment may be an MME, and the MME may send the terminalequipment identifier, contained in the bearer establishment request, ofthe remote terminal equipment to the P-GW to enable the P-GW toestablish the data transmission channel (for example, the GTP tunnel) ofthe remote terminal equipment with the network equipment and enable thenetwork equipment to establish the radio bearer of the remote terminalequipment. Here, the radio bearer may include a cellular datatransmission channel between the network equipment and the relayterminal equipment and a D2D data transmission channel between the relayterminal equipment and the remote terminal equipment.

The relay terminal equipment may receive a bearer establishment responsesent by the network equipment, the bearer establishment responsecontaining configuration information of the radio bearer established forthe remote terminal equipment by the network equipment. Here, theconfiguration information of the radio bearer may optionally includePHY-layer configuration information. Optionally, the configurationinformation of the radio bearer may further include at least one of thefollowing information: MAC-layer configuration information, PDCP-layerconfiguration information and RLC-layer configuration information.Optionally, the configuration information of the radio bearer mayfurther include the L2 identifier allocated to the remote terminalequipment by the network equipment. However, the embodiment of thepresent disclosure is not limited thereto.

Optionally, the relay terminal equipment may send a connectionestablishment response to the remote terminal equipment according to thebearer establishment response. The connection establishment responsecontains the PHY-layer configuration information, or may further containat least one of the MAC-layer configuration information, the PDCP-layerconfiguration information and the RLC-layer configuration information,and may further contain the L2 identifier of the remote terminalequipment. However, the embodiment of the present disclosure is notlimited thereto.

Optionally, before relay transmission, the network equipment may alsoestablish the bearer for the remote terminal equipment. For example, thedata transmission channel (for example, the GTP tunnel) of the remoteterminal equipment may be established between the network equipment andthe P-GW and the radio bearer of the remote terminal equipment may beestablished between the network equipment and the relay terminalequipment. However, the embodiment of the present disclosure is notlimited thereto.

Optionally, the relay terminal equipment may receive the connectionestablishment request of the remote terminal equipment, the connectionestablishment request being configured to request tier establishment ofthe D2D communication link between the relay terminal equipment and theremote terminal equipment. Optionally, the connection establishmentrequest may specifically be a direct communication request configured torequest for establishment of the PC5 connection with the relay terminalequipment.

The relay terminal equipment may send the bearer establishment requestto the core network equipment according to the connection establishmentrequest, and the bearer establishment request may contain the terminalequipment identifier of the remote terminal equipment. Optionally, thecore network equipment may be an MME, and the MME may send the terminalequipment identifier, contained in the bearer establishment request, ofthe remote terminal equipment to the P-GW to enable the P-GW toestablish the data transmission channel (for example, the GTP tunnel) ofthe remote terminal equipment with the network equipment and enable thenetwork equipment to establish the radio bearer of the remote terminalequipment. Here, the radio bearer may include the cellular datatransmission channel between the network equipment and the relayterminal equipment and the D2D data transmission channel between therelay terminal equipment and the remote terminal equipment.

The relay terminal equipment may receive the bearer establishmentresponse sent by the network equipment, the bearer establishmentresponse containing the configuration information of the radio bearerestablished for the remote terminal equipment by the network equipment.Here, the configuration information of the radio bearer may optionallyinclude the PHY-layer configuration information. Here, the PHY-layerconfiguration information may optionally include a relay specific RNTIand/or a PHY resource configured for relay transmission. Here, the PHYresource configured for relay transmission may include a PHY resourceconfigured for relay transmission between the relay terminal equipmentand the network equipment and/or a PHY source configured for relaytransmission between the relay terminal equipment and the remoteterminal equipment. Optionally, the PHY-layer configuration informationmay further include indication information configured to indicate thecorresponding relationship between the preamble and the data volumerange and/or indication information configured to indicate thecorresponding relationship between the PUCCH resource and the datavolume range. However, the embodiment of the present disclosure is notlimited thereto.

Optionally, the configuration information of the radio bearer mayfurther include L2 configuration information, and the L2 configurationinformation may include at least one of the MAC-layer configurationinformation, the RLC-layer configuration information and the PDCP-layerconfiguration information. Optionally, the L2 configuration may includethe L2 identifier allocated to the remote terminal equipment by thenetwork equipment. However, the embodiment of the present disclosure isnot limited thereto.

Optionally, the relay terminal equipment may send the connectionestablishment response to the remote terminal equipment according to thebearer establishment response. The connection establishment responsecontains at least one of the MAC-layer configuration information, theRLC-layer configuration information and the PDCP-layer configurationinformation. Optionally, if the connection establishment response doesnot contain the L2 configuration information, the remote terminalequipment may configure L2 according to a received D2D broadcast messageof the relay terminal equipment. Optionally if the connectionestablishment response contains the L2 configuration information, theremote terminal equipment may configure L2 according to at least one ofthe MAC-layer configuration information, the RLC-layer configurationinformation and the PDCP-layer configuration information contained inthe connection establishment response. However, the embodiment of thepresent disclosure is not limited thereto.

Therefore, according to the relay transmission method of the embodimentof the present disclosure, the relay terminal equipment relays the databetween the remote terminal equipment and the network equipment in thebottom-layer relay manner. Here, the remote terminal equipment or thenetwork equipment sends the bottom-layer data frame to the relayterminal equipment. The relay terminal equipment does not identify theremote terminal equipment in the bottom layer. When it is determinedthat the received data frame contains relay data, the relay terminalequipment performs relay forwarding processing on the data frame throughthe bottom layer. Compared with an L3 relay manner adopted by the relayterminal equipment in the conventional art, such a manner may reduceprocessing complexity of the relay terminal equipment, reduce atransmission delay of the relay data and improve overall systemperformance.

The embodiment of the present disclosure will be described below inconjunction with specific examples in detail. It is to be noted thatthese examples are adopted not to limit the scope of the embodiment ofthe present disclosure but only to help those skilled in the art tobetter understand the embodiment of the present disclosure.

For convenient description, in the following examples, there is madesuch a hypothesis that a cellular network has established a Packet DataNetwork (PDN) connection and a bearer for remote terminal equipment andsuch a hypothesis that the remote terminal equipment is specificallyremote UE, relay terminal equipment is specifically relay UE, networkequipment is specifically an eNB and a bottom layer corresponding to aPC5 is specifically a PHY layer. It is to be understood that, it anotherD2D communication technology different from an SL technology of LTE isadopted for the PC5 interface, the bottom layer may specifically be L1corresponding to the other D2D communication technology. However, theembodiment of the present disclosure is not limited thereto.

FIG. 5 schematically shows a relay transmission method 300 according toanother embodiment of the present disclosure. The method 300 may beapplied to relay transmission of downlink data.

In S310, when receiving data sent by the remote terminal equipment, aP-GW sends the data to an eNB through a GTP tunnel of an S1-U interfaceallocated in a bearer establishment process.

In S320, after receiving the data of the remote terminal equipment fromthe GTP tunnel, the eNB encapsulates the data into a MAC PDU of a Uuinterface. Here, the MAC PDU of the Uu interface contains identificationinformation of the remote terminal equipment, for example, an L2identifier or a terminal equipment identifier.

In S330, the eNB may schedule downlink data transmission through a PDCCHaddressed by a relay-specific RNTI and transmit the MAC PDU of the Uninterface to relay terminal equipment in a Physical Downlink SharedChannel (PDSCH) through the PHY layer.

At this moment, the eNB may optionally scramble the PDCCH through therelay-specific RNTI to indicate that the PDCCH is configured to schedulerelay data transmission. Correspondingly, the relay terminal equipmentmay perform addressing according to the relay-specific RNTI. However,the embodiment of the present disclosure is not limited thereto.

In S340, after receiving the MAC PDU of the Uu interface through the PHYlayer, the relay terminal equipment may determine that the received MACPDU contains relay data in the PHY layer and send a MAC PDU of the PC5interface through the PHY layer.

At this moment, the relay terminal equipment may not identify the remoteterminal equipment corresponding to the received MAC PDU. Optionally,the relay terminal equipment may not perform decoding processing on thereceived MAC PDU, and at this moment, the MAC PDU of the Uu interfacemay be the same as the MAC PDU of the PCS interface. Alternatively, therelay terminal equipment may perform decoding and coding processing onthe received MAC PDU of the Uu interface in the PHY layer to obtain theMAC PDU of the PCS interface. However, the embodiment of the presentdisclosure is not limited thereto.

In S350, the relay terminal equipment sends the MAC PDU of the PC5interface on a specific time-frequency resource configured for relaytransmission.

Wherein, the relay terminal equipment may broadcast the MAC PDU of thePC5 interface on a time-frequency resource configured for relaytransmission.

In S360, after receiving the MAC PDU of the PC5 interface through thePHY layer, the remote terminal equipment may perform parsing processingon the identification information, contained in the MAC PDU of the PCSinterface, of the remote terminal equipment in a higher layer (forexample, L2) to determine whether the MAC PDU is sent to it or not.Optionally, if determining that the received MAC PDU is sent to it, theremote terminal equipment may perform further processing such asdecoding on the MAC PDU. If determining that the received MAC PDU is notsent to it, the remote terminal equipment may discard the MAC PDU.However, the embodiment of the invention is not limited thereto.

FIG. 6 schematically shows a relay transmission method 400 according toanother embodiment of the present disclosure. The method 400 may beapplied to relay transmission of uplink data.

In S410, when remote terminal equipment has data to be sent to acellular network, the remote terminal equipment encapsulates the datainto a MAC PDU. Here, the MAC PDU contains identification information ofthe remote terminal equipment.

In S420, the remote terminal equipment sends the MAC PDU on atime-frequency resource configured for relay transmission in a PHY layerthrough a PC5 interface.

In S430 after receiving the MAC PDU from the remote terminal equipmentthrough the PHY layer, relay terminal equipment may perform decodingprocessing on the received MAC PDU in the PHY layer to determine a datavolume contained in the MAC PDU.

At this moment, the relay terminal equipment may not identify the remoteterminal equipment corresponding to the received MAC PDU but onlyidentify the data volume contained in the MAC PDU in the PHY layer.

Optionally, in S440, the relay terminal equipment determines a PUCCHresource corresponding to the data volume contained in the MAC PDUaccording to a corresponding relationship between a preset data volumerange and a PUCCH resource and adopt the PUCCH resource to send ascheduling request to an eNB.

In S450, after receiving the scheduling request sent by the relayterminal equipment, the eNB may determine a data volume range to be sentby the relay terminal equipment according to the PUCCH resource occupiedby the scheduling request and allocate an uplink transmission resourceto the relay terminal equipment through a PDCCH according to the datavolume range.

In S460, after receiving the PDCCH sent by the eNB, the relay terminalequipment may send a MAC PDU of a Uu interface on the uplinktransmission resource allocated by the eNB through the PHY layer.

In S470, after receiving the MAC PDU sent by the relay terminalequipment through the PHY layer, the eNB may parse the MAC PDU of the Uuinterface in a higher layer (for example, L2) to identify the remoteterminal equipment corresponding to the MAC PDU.

In S480, the eNB may transmit the data contained in the MAC PDU to aP-GW in a GTP tunnel corresponding to the remote terminal equipmentthrough an S1 interface.

It is important to note that the examples of FIG. 5 and FIG. 6 areadopted not to limit the scope of the embodiment of the presentdisclosure but to help those skilled in the art to better understand theembodiment of the present disclosure. Those skilled in the art mayobviously make various equivalent modifications of variations accordingto the listed examples of FIG. 5 and FIG. 6, and these modifications andvariations also all within the scope of the embodiment of the presentdisclosure.

It is to be understood that magnitudes of sequence numbers of eachprocess do not mean an execution sequence and the execution sequence ofeach process should be determined by their functions and an internallogic and should not form any limit to an implementation process of theembodiment of the present disclosure.

The relay transmission method according to the embodiment of the presentdisclosure is described above in combination with FIG. 1 to FIG. 6 indetail, and a device for relay transmission according to the embodimentof the present disclosure will be described below in combination withFIG. 7 to FIG. 12 in detail.

FIG. 7 schematically shows a device for relay transmission 500 accordingto an embodiment of the present disclosure. The device 500 includes areceiving unit 510 and a processing unit 520.

The receiving unit 510 is configured to receive a first bottom-layerdata frame which is intended to be sent to a receiver equipment by asender equipment. Here, the first bottom-layer data frame is obtained bythe sender equipment by processing through a bottom layer, a MAC PDUcontaining identification information of a remote terminal equipment.

The processing unit 520 is configured to determine that the firstbottom-layer data frame received by the receiving unit 510 is requiredto be forwarded in the bottom layer and perform forwarding processing onthe first bottom-layer data frame in the bottom layer.

Here, the sender equipment is the remote terminal equipment and thereceiver equipment is a network equipment, or the sender equipment isthe network equipment and the receiver equipment is the remote terminalequipment.

Optionally, when the sender equipment is the network equipment, theprocessing unit 520 is further configured to, before the receiving unit510 receives the first bottom-layer data frame which is intended to besent to the receiver equipment by the sender equipment, performaddressing through a relay-specific RNTI. In such case, the processingunit 520 is specifically configured to, if the first bottom layer dataframe is received by relay terminal equipment by addressing, determine,by the relay terminal equipment, that the first bottom layer data frameis required to be forwarded.

Optionally, the first bottom-layer data frame is sent by the senderequipment by, adopting a transmission resource for relay transmission.In such case, the processing unit 520 is specifically configured todetermine that the first bottom-layer data frame is required to beforwarded according to the transmission resource occupied by the firstbottom-layer data frame.

Optionally, the identification information of the remote terminalequipment includes an L2 identifier of the remote terminal equipment ora terminal equipment identifier of the remote terminal equipment.

Optionally, a bottom layer of the network equipment is specifically aPHY layer, and a bottom layer of the remote terminal equipmentcorresponds to a D2D communication technology adopted between the remoteterminal equipment and the relay terminal equipment.

Optionally, the identification information of the remote terminalequipment is born in a MAC CE field of the MAC PDU.

Optionally, when the sender equipment is the remote terminal equipmentand the receiver equipment is the network equipment, the processing unit520 is further configured to, before performing forwarding processing onthe first bottom layer data frame in the bottom layer, determine a PUCCHresource corresponding to a data volume contained in the firstbottom-layer data frame in the bottom layer according to correspondencesbetween PUCCH resources and data volumes or correspondences betweenPUCCH resources and data volume ranges; and correspondingly, the device500 further includes: a first sending unit, configured to adopt thePUCCH resource determined by the processing unit 520 to send ascheduling request to the network equipment.

Optionally, when the sender equipment is the remote terminal equipmentand the receiver equipment is the network equipment, the processing unit520 is further configured to, before performing forwarding processing onthe first bottom-layer data frame in the bottom layer, determine apreamble corresponding to the data volume contained in the firstbottom-layer data frame in the bottom layer according to correspondencesbetween preambles and data volumes or correspondences between preamblesand data volume ranges; and correspondingly, the device 500 furtherincludes a first sending unit, configured to send the preamble to thenetwork equipment, the preamble being configured for the networkequipment to allocate an uplink transmission resource to the relayterminal equipment.

Optionally, the processing unit 520 is specifically configured toperform decoding processing on the first bottom-layer data frame toobtain data contained in the first bottom-layer data frame and performcoding processing on the data to obtain a second bottom-layer dataframe; and correspondingly, the device 500 further includes: a secondsending unit, configured to send the second bottom-layer data frameobtained by the processing unit 520.

Optionally, the device 500 further includes a second sending unit. Here,the processing unit 520 is specifically configured to directly send thefirst bottom-layer data frame through the second sending unit in thebottom layer.

In an optional example, the device 500 may specifically be the relayterminal equipment in the abovementioned embodiment, and the device 500may be configured to execute each flow and/or step corresponding to therelay terminal equipment in the abovementioned method embodiment andwill not be elaborated herein to avoid repetitions.

FIG. 8 schematically shows another device 600 for relay transmissionaccording to an embodiment of the present disclosure. Here, the device600 may specifically be remote terminal equipment or sender equipment isnetwork equipment. As shown in FIG. 8, the device 600 includes aprocessing unit 610 and a sending unit 620.

The processing unit 610 is configured to generate a MAC PDU. Here, theMAC PDU contains identification information of a remote terminalequipment.

The sending unit 620 is configured to send a first bottom-layer dataframe, which is obtained by processing the MAC PDU through a bottomlayer, to a relay terminal equipment.

Optionally, if the device 600 is the network equipment, the sending unit620 is further configured to, before sending the first bottom-layer dataframe to the relay terminal equipment, send a PDCCH to the relayterminal equipment. Here, the PDCCH is configured to schedule the firstbottom-layer data frame, and the PDCCH is scrambled by adopting arelay-specific RNTI.

Optionally, the sending unit 620 is specifically configured to adopt atransmission resource for relay transmission to send the firstbottom-layer data frame to the relay terminal equipment.

Optionally, the identification information of the remote terminalequipment includes an L2 identifier of the remote terminal equipment ora terminal equipment identifier of the remote terminal equipment.

Optionally, the identification information of the remote terminalequipment is born in a MAC CE field of the MAC PDU.

In an optional example, the device 600 may specifically be the senderequipment in the abovementioned embodiment, and the device 600 may beconfigured to execute each flow and/or step corresponding to the senderequipment in the abovementioned method embodiment and will not beelaborated herein to avoid repetitions.

FIG. 9 shows another device 700 for relay transmission according to anembodiment of the present disclosure. Here, the device 700 mayspecifically be network equipment or receiver equipment is remoteterminal equipment. As shown in FIG. 9, the device 700 includes areceiving unit 710 and a processing unit 720.

The receiving unit 710 is configured to receive a second bottom-layerdata frame sent by a relay terminal equipment. Here, the secondbottom-layer data frame is obtained by processing a MACPDU containingidentification information of a remote terminal equipment through abottom layer.

The processing unit 720 is configured to determine that the secondbottom-layer data frame corresponds to the remote terminal equipment ina higher layer according to the identification information of the remoteterminal equipment contained in the second bottom-layer data framereceived by the receiving unit 710.

Optionally, the receiving unit 710 is specifically configured to receivethe second bottom-layer data frame sent by the relay terminal equipmentby adopting a transmission resource for relay transmission.

Correspondingly, the processing unit 720 is specifically configured todetermine that the second bottom-layer data frame has been forwarded bythe relay terminal equipment according to the transmission resourceoccupied by the second bottom-layer data frame.

Optionally, if the device 700 is the network equipment, the processingunit 720 is further configured to determine a data transmission tunnelcorresponding to the remote terminal equipment. In such case, as shownin FIG. 9, the device 700 further includes a sending unit 730,configured to send data contained in the second bottom-layer data frameto a core network equipment through the corresponding data transmissiontunnel determined by the processing unit 720.

Optionally, the identification information of the remote terminal,equipment includes an L2 identifier of the remote terminal equipment ora terminal equipment identifier of the remote terminal equipment.

Optionally, the identification information of the remote terminalequipment is born in a MAC CE field of the MAC PDU.

Optionally, if the device 700 is the network equipment, the receivingunit 710 is further configured to, before receiving the secondbottom-layer data frame sent by the relay terminal equipment, receive ascheduling request sent by the relay terminal equipment.

Correspondingly, the processing unit 720 is further configured todetermine a data volume or data volume range corresponding to a PUCCHresource occupied by the scheduling request received by the receivingunit 710 according to correspondences between PUCCH resources and datavolumes or correspondences between PUCCH resources and data volumeranges and allocate an uplink transmission resource to the relayterminal equipment according to the data volume or data volume range.

Optionally, if the device 700 is the network equipment, the receivingunit 710 is further configured to, before receiving the secondbottom-layer data frame sent by the relay terminal equipment, receive apreamble sent by the relay terminal equipment.

Correspondingly, the processing, unit 720 is further configured todetermine a data volume or data volume range corresponding to thepreamble received by the receiving unit 710 according to correspondencesbetween preambles and data volumes or correspondences between preamblesand data volume ranges and allocate the uplink transmission resource tothe relay terminal equipment according to the data volume or data volumerange.

In an optional example, the device 700 may specifically be the receiverequipment in the abovementioned embodiment, and the device 700 may beconfigured to execute each flow and/or step corresponding to thereceiver equipment in the abovementioned method embodiment and will notbe elaborated herein to avoid repetitions.

It is to be understood that each of the device 500, the device 600 andthe device 700 is implemented in form of functional unit. Term “unit”mentioned herein may refer to an Application Specific Integrated Circuit(ASIC), an electronic circuit, a processor (for example, a sharedprocessor, a dedicated processor or a group processor) and memoryconfigured to execute one or more software or firmware programs, acombined logical circuit and/or another proper component supporting thedescribed functions.

FIG. 10 schematically shows a device 800 for relay transmissionaccording to an embodiment of the present disclosure. The device 800includes a receiver 810 and a processor 820.

The receiver 810 is configured to receive a first bottom-layer dataframe which is intended to be sent to a receiver equipment by a senderequipment. Here, the first bottom-layer data frame is obtained by thesender equipment by processing through a bottom layer, a MAC PDUcontaining identification information of a remote terminal equipment.

The processor 820 is configured to determine that the first bottom-layerdata frame received by the receiver 810 is required to be forwarded inthe bottom layer and perform forwarding processing on the firstbottom-layer data frame in the bottom layer.

Here, the sender equipment is the remote terminal equipment and thereceiver equipment is a network equipment, or the sender equipment isthe network equipment and the receiver equipment is the remote terminalequipment.

Optionally, when the sender equipment is the network equipment, theprocessor 820 is further configured to, before the receiver 810 receivesthe first bottom-layer data frame which is intended to be sent to thereceiver equipment by the sender equipment, perform addressing through arelay-specific RNTI. In such case, the processor 820 is specificallyconfigured to, if the first bottom-layer data frame is received by relayterminal equipment by addressing, determine, by the relay terminalequipment, that the first bottom-layer data frame is required to beforwarded.

Optionally, the first bottom-layer data frame is sent by the senderequipment by adopting a transmission resource for relay transmission. Insuch case, the processor 820 is specifically configured to determinethat the first bottom-layer data frame is required to be forwardedaccording to the transmission resource occupied by the firstbottom-layer data frame.

Optionally, the identification information of the remote terminalequipment includes an L2 identifier of the remote terminal equipment ora terminal equipment identifier of the remote terminal equipment.

Optionally, a bottom layer of the network equipment is specifically aPHY layer, and a bottom layer of the remote terminal equipmentcorresponds to a D2D communication technology adopted between the remoteterminal equipment and the relay terminal equipment.

Optionally, the identification information of the remote terminalequipment is born in a MAC CE field of the MAC PDU.

Optionally, when the sender equipment is the remote terminal equipmentand the receiver equipment is the network equipment, the processor 820is further configured to, before performing forwarding processing on thefirst bottom-layer data frame in the bottom layer, determine a PUCCHresource corresponding to a data volume contained in the firstbottom-layer data frame in the bottom layer according to correspondencesbetween PUCCH resources and data volumes or correspondences betweenPUCCH resources and data volume ranges. Correspondingly, the device 800further includes a sender 830, configured to adopt the PUCCH resourcedetermined by the processor 820 to send a scheduling request to thenetwork equipment.

Optionally, when the sender equipment is the remote terminal equipmentand the receiver equipment is the network equipment, the processor 820is further configured to, before performing forwarding processing on thefirst bottom-layer data frame in the bottom layer, determine a preamblecorresponding to the data volume contained in the first bottom-layerdata frame in the bottom layer according, to correspondences betweenpreambles and data volumes or correspondences between preambles and datavolume ranges; and correspondingly, the device 800 further includes asender 830, configured to send the preamble to the network equipment,the preamble being configured for the network equipment to allocate anuplink transmission resource to the relay terminal equipment.

Optionally, the processor 820 is specifically configured to performdecoding processing on the first bottom-layer data frame to obtain datacontained in the first bottom-layer data frame and perform codingprocessing on the data to obtain a second bottom-layer data frame.Correspondingly, the device 800 further includes: a sender 830,configured to send the second bottom-layer data frame obtained by theprocessor 820.

Optionally, the device 800 further includes a sender 830. Here, theprocessor 820 is specifically configured to directly send the firstbottom-layer data frame through the sender 830 in the bottom layer.

In an optional example, the device 800 may specifically be the relayterminal equipment in the abovementioned embodiment. And the device 800may be configured to execute each step and/or now corresponding to therelay terminal equipment in the abovementioned method embodiment.Optionally, the device 800 may further include a memory, and the memorymay include a Read-Only Memory (ROM) and a Random Access Memory (RAM),and provides an instruction and data for the processor. A part of thememory may further include a nonvolatile RAM. For example, the memorymay further store information about an equipment type. The processor maybe configured to execute the instruction stored in the memory, and whenthe processor executes the instruction stored in the memory, theprocessor is configured to execute each step and/or flow of theabovementioned method embodiment.

FIG. 11 schematically shows another device 900 for relay transmissionaccording to an embodiment of the present disclosure. Here, the device900 may specifically be remote terminal equipment or sender equipment isnetwork equipment. As shown in FIG. 11, the device 900 includes aprocessor 910 and a sender 920.

The processor 910 is configured to generate a MAC PDU. Here, the MAC PDUcontains identification information of a remote terminal equipment.

The sender 920 is configured to send a first bottom-layer data frame,which is obtained by processing the MAC PDU through a bottom layer, to arelay terminal equipment.

Optionally, if the device 900 is the network equipment, the sender 920is further configured to, before sending the first bottom-layer dataframe to the relay terminal equipment, send a PDCCH to the relayterminal equipment. Here, the PDCCH is configured to schedule the firstbottom-layer data frame, and the PDCCH is scrambled by adopting arelay-specific RNTI.

Optionally, the sender 920 is specifically configured to adopt atransmission resource for relay transmission to send the firstbottom-layer data frame to the relay terminal equipment.

Optionally, the identification information of the remote terminalequipment includes an L2 identifier of the remote terminal equipment ora terminal equipment identifier of the remote terminal equipment.

Optionally, the identification information of the remote terminalequipment is born in a MAC CE field of the MAC PDU.

In an optional example, the device 900 may specifically be the senderequipment in the abovementioned embodiment, and the device 900 may beconfigured to execute each step and/or flow corresponding to the senderequipment in the abovementioned method embodiment. Optionally, thedevice 900 may further include a memory, and the memory may include aROM and a RAM, and provides an instruction and data for the processor. Apart of the memory may further include a nonvolatile RAM. For example,the memory may further store information about an equipment type. Theprocessor may be configured to execute the instruction stored in thememory, and when the processor executes the instruction stored in thememory, the processor is configured to execute each step and/or flow ofthe abovementioned method embodiment.

FIG. 12 shows another device 1000 for relay transmission according to anembodiment of the present disclosure. Here, the device 1000 mayspecifically be network equipment or receiver equipment is remoteterminal equipment. As shown in FIG. 12, the device 1000 includes areceiver 1010 and a processor 1020.

The receiver 1010 is configured to receive a second bottom-layer dataframe sent by a relay terminal equipment. Here, the second bottom-layerdata frame is obtained by processing a MAC PDU containing identificationinformation of a remote terminal equipment through a bottom layer.

The processor 1020 is configured to determine that the secondbottom-layer data frame corresponds to the remote terminal equipment ina higher layer according to the identification information of the remoteterminal equipment contained in the second bottom-layer data framereceived by the receiver 1010.

Optionally, the receiver 1010 is specifically configured to receive thesecond bottom-layer data frame sent by the relay terminal equipment byadopting a transmission resource for relay transmission.

Correspondingly, the processor 1020 is specifically configured todetermine that the second bottom-layer data frame has been forwarded bythe relay terminal equipment according to the transmission resourceoccupied by the second bottom-layer data frame.

Optionally, if the device 1000 is the network equipment, the processor1020 is further configured to determine a data transmission tunnelcorresponding to the remote terminal equipment. In such case, as shownin FIG. 12, the device 1000 further includes a sender 1030, configuredto send data contained in the second bottom-layer data frame to a corenetwork equipment through the corresponding data transmission tunneldetermined by the processor 1020.

Optionally, the identification information of the remote terminalequipment includes an L2 identifier of the remote terminal equipment ora terminal equipment identifier of the remote terminal equipment.

Optionally, the identification information of the remote terminalequipment is born in a MAC CE field of the MAC PDU.

Optionally, if the device 1000 is the network equipment, the receiver1010 is further configured to, before receiving the second bottom-layerdata frame sent by the relay terminal equipment, receive a schedulingrequest sent by the relay terminal equipment; and

correspondingly, the processor 1020 is further configured to determine adata volume or data volume range corresponding to a PUCCH resourceoccupied by the scheduling request received by the receiver 1010according to correspondences between PUCCH resources and data volumes orcorrespondences between PUCCH resources and data volume ranges andallocate an uplink transmission resource to the relay terminal equipmentaccording to the data volume or data volume range.

Optionally, if the device 1000 is the network equipment, the receiver1010 is further configured to, before receiving the second bottom-layerdata frame sent by the relay terminal equipment, receive a preamble sentby the relay terminal equipment.

Correspondingly, the processor 1020 is further configured to determine adata volume or data volume range corresponding to the preamble receivedby the receiver 1010 according to correspondences between preambles anddata volumes or correspondences between preambles and data volume rangesand allocate the uplink transmission resource to the relay terminalequipment according to the data volume or data volume range.

In an optional example, the device 1000 may specifically be the receiverequipment in the abovementioned embodiment, and the device 1000 may beconfigured to execute each step and/or flow corresponding to thereceiver equipment in the abovementioned method embodiment. Optionally,the device 1000 may further include a memory, and the memory may includea ROM and a RAM, and provides an instruction and data for the processor.A part of the memory may further include a nonvolatile RAM. For example,the memory may further store information about an equipment type. Theprocessor may be configured to execute the instruction stored in thememory, and when the processor executes the instruction stored in thememory, the processor is configured to execute each step and/or flow ofthe abovementioned method embodiment.

It is to be understood that, in the embodiment of the presentdisclosure, the processor may be a Central Processing Unit (CPU), andthe processor may also be another universal processor, a Digital SignalProcessor (DSP), to ASIC, a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) oranother programmable logical device, a discrete or transistor logicaldevice, a discrete hardware component and the like. The universalprocessor may be a microprocessor or the processor may also be anyconventional processor and the like.

In an implementation process, each step of the method may be completedthrough an integrated logical circuit of hardware in the processor or aninstruction in a software form. The steps of the method disclosed incombination with the embodiments of the present disclosure may directlybe embodied to be executed and completed by a hardware processor orexecuted and completed by a combination of hardware and software modulesin the processor. The software module may be located in a mature storagemedium in this field such as a RAM, a flash memory, a ROM, aprogrammable ROM or electrically erasable programmable ROM and aregister. The storage medium is located in the memory, and the processorexecutes the instruction in the memory to complete the steps of themethod in combination with hardware. For avoiding repetitions, no moredetailed descriptions will be made herein.

It is to be understood that, for avoiding repetitions, descriptionsabout the embodiments of the present disclosure emphasize differencesbetween each embodiment and the same or similar parts may refer to eachother.

Those of ordinary skilled in the art may realize that the steps andunits of each method described in combination with the embodimentsdisclosed in the present disclosure may be implemented by electronichardware, computer software or a combination of the two. For clearlydescribing interchangeability of hardware and software, the steps andcompositions of each embodiment have been generally described accordingto functions in the above descriptions. Whether these functions areexecuted in a hardware or software manner depends on specificapplications and design constraints of the technical solutions. Those ofordinary skilled in the art may realize the described functions for eachspecific application by virtue of different methods, but suchrealization shall fall within the scope of the present disclosure.

Those skilled in the art may clearly learn about that specific workingprocesses of the system, device and unit described above may refer tothe corresponding processes in the method embodiments and will not beelaborated herein for convenient and brief description.

In some embodiments provided by the application, it is to be understoodthat the disclosed system, device and method may be implemented inanother manner. For example, the device embodiment described above isonly schematic, and for example, division of the units is only logicfunction division, and other division manners may be adopted duringpractical implementation. For example, multiple units or components maybe combined or integrated into another system, or some characteristicsmay be neglected or not executed. In addition, coupling or directcoupling or communication connection between each displayed or discussedcomponent may be indirect coupling or communication connection,implemented through some interfaces, of the device or the units, and maybe electrical and mechanical or adopt other forms.

The units described as separate parts may or may not be physicallyseparated, and parts displayed as units may or may not be physicalunits, and namely may be located in the same place, or may also bedistributed to multiple network units. Part or all of the units may beselected to achieve the purpose of the solutions of the embodiments ofthe present disclosure according to a practical requirement.

In addition, each function unit in each embodiment of the presentdisclosure may be integrated into a processing unit, each unit may alsophysically exist independently, and two or more than two units may alsobe integrated into a unit. The integrated unit may be implemented in ahardware form and may also be implemented in form of software functionalunit

When being implemented in form of software functional unit and sold orused as an independent product, the integrated unit may be stored in acomputer-readable storage medium. Based an such an understanding, thetechnical solutions of the present disclosure substantially or partsmaking contributions to the conventional art or part of the technicalsolutions may be embodied in form of software product, and the computersoftware product is stored in a storage medium, including a plurality ofinstructions configured to enable a computer equipment (which may be apersonal computer, a server, network equipment or the like) to executeall or part of the steps of the method in each embodiment of the presentdisclosure. The storage medium includes: various media capable ofstoring program codes such as a U disk, a mobile hard disk, a ROM, aRAM, a magnetic disk or an optical disk.

The above is only the specific implementation mode of the presentdisclosure and not intended to limit the scope of protection of thepresent disclosure. Various equivalent modifications or replacements areapparent to those skilled in the art within the technical scopedisclosed by the present disclosure, and these modifications orreplacements shall fall within the scope of protection of the presentdisclosure. Therefore, the scope of protection of the present disclosureshall be subject to the scope of protection of the claims.

1. A relay transmission device, comprising: a receiver, configured toreceive a first bottom-layer data frame which is intended to be sent toa receiver equipment by a sender equipment, wherein the firstbottom-layer data frame is obtained by the sender equipment byprocessing through a bottom layer, a Media Access Control (MAC) ProtocolData Unit (PDU) containing identification information of a remoteterminal equipment; and a processor configured to determine in thebottom layer that the first bottom-layer data frame received by thereceiver is required to be forwarded and perform forwarding processingon the first bottom-layer data frame in the bottom layer, wherein thesender equipment is the remote terminal equipment and the receiverequipment is a network equipment, or the sender equipment is the networkequipment and the receiver equipment is the remote terminal equipment.2. The device of claim 1, wherein the first bottom-layer data frame issent by the sender equipment by adopting a transmission resource forrelay transmission; and the processor is configured to determine thatthe first bottom-layer data frame is required to be forwarded accordingto the transmission resource occupied by the first bottom-layer dataframe.
 3. The device of claim 1, wherein the identification informationof the remote terminal equipment comprises a Layer-2 (L2) identifier ofthe remote terminal equipment or a terminal equipment identifier of theremote terminal equipment.
 4. The device of claim 1, wherein a bottomlayer of the network equipment is a Physical (PHY) layer, and a bottomlayer of the remote terminal equipment corresponds to a technologyadopted for Device-to-Device (D2D) communication between the remoteterminal equipment and the relay terminal equipment.
 5. The device ofclaim 1, wherein the identification information of the remote terminalequipment is born in a MAC Control Element (CE) field of the MAC PDU. 6.The device of claim 1, wherein when the sender equipment is the remoteterminal equipment and the receiver equipment is the network equipment,the processor is further configured to, before performing forwardingprocessing on the first bottom-layer data frame in the bottom layer,determine a Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) resourcecorresponding to a data volume contained in the first bottom-layer dataframe in the bottom layer according to correspondences between PUCCHresources and data volumes or correspondences between PUCCH resourcesand data volume ranges; and the device further comprises: a firstsender, configured to adopt the PUCCH resource determined by theprocessor to send a scheduling request to the network equipment.
 7. Thedevice of claim 1, wherein when the sender equipment is the remoteterminal equipment and the receiver equipment is the network equipment,the processor is further configured to, before performing forwardingprocessing on the first bottom-layer data frame in the bottom layer,determine a preamble corresponding to the data volume contained in thefirst bottom-layer data frame in the bottom layer according tocorrespondences between preambles and data volumes or correspondencesbetween preambles and data volume ranges; and the device furthercomprises: a first sender, configured to send the preamble to thenetwork equipment, the preamble being configured for the networkequipment to allocate an uplink transmission resource to the relayterminal equipment.
 8. The device of claim 1, wherein the processor isconfigured to perform decoding processing on the first bottom-layer dataframe to obtain data contained in the first bottom-layer data frame andperform coding processing on the data to obtain a second bottom-layerdata frame; and the device further comprises: a second sender configuredto send the second bottom-layer data frame obtained by the processor. 9.The device of claim 1, further comprising: a second sender, wherein theprocessor is configured to directly send the first bottom-layer dataframe through the second sender in the bottom layer.
 10. A device forrelay transmission, comprising: a processor, configured to generate aMedia Access Control (MAC) Protocol Data Unit (PDU), wherein the MAC PDUcontains identification information of a remote terminal equipment; anda sender, configured to send a first bottom-layer data frame, which isobtained by processing the MAC PDU through a bottom layer, to a relayterminal equipment, wherein the device is the remote terminal equipmentor the device is network equipment.
 11. The device of claim 10, whereinthe sender is configured to adopt a transmission resource for relaytransmission to send the first bottom-layer data frame to the relayterminal equipment.
 12. The device of claim 10, wherein theidentification information of the remote terminal equipment comprises aLayer-2: (L2) identifier of the remote terminal equipment or a terminalequipment identifier of the remote terminal equipment.
 13. The device ofclaim 10, wherein the identification information of the remote terminalequipment is born in a MAC Control Element (CE) field of the MAC PDU.14. A device for relay transmission, comprising: a receiver, configuredto receive a second bottom-layer data frame sent by a relay terminalequipment, wherein the second bottom-layer data frame is obtained byprocessing a Media Access Control (MAC) Protocol Data Unit (PDU)containing identification information of a remote terminal equipmentthrough a bottom layer; and a processor, configured to determine in ahigher layer that the second bottom-layer data frame corresponds to theremote terminal equipment according to the identification information ofthe remote terminal equipment contained in the second bottom-layer dataframe received by the receiver, wherein the device is a networkequipment or the device is the remote terminal equipment.
 15. The deviceof claim 14, wherein when the device is the network equipment, theprocessor is further configured to determine a data transmission tunnelcorresponding to the remote terminal equipment: and the device furthercomprises: a sender configured to send data contained in the secondbottom-layer data frame to a core network equipment through thecorresponding data transmission tunnel determined by the processor. 16.The device of claim 14, wherein the identification information of theremote terminal equipment comprises a Layer-2 (L2) identifier of theremote terminal equipment or a terminal equipment identifier of theremote terminal equipment.
 17. The device of claim 14, wherein theidentification information of the remote terminal equipment is born in aMAC Control Element (CE) field of the MAC PDU.
 18. The device of claim14, wherein when the device is the network equipment, the receiver isfurther configured to, before receiving the second bottom-layer dataframe sent by the relay terminal equipment, receive a scheduling requestsent by the relay terminal equipment; and the processor is furtherconfigured to determine a data volume or data volume range correspondingto a Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) resource occupied by thescheduling request received by the receiver according to correspondencesbetween PUCCH resources and data volumes or correspondences betweenPUCCH resources and data volume ranges and allocate an uplinktransmission resource to the relay terminal equipment according to thedata volume or data volume range.
 19. The device of claim 14, whereinwhen the device is the network equipment, the receiver is furtherconfigured to, before receiving the second bottom-layer data frame sentby the relay terminal equipment, receive a preamble sent by the relayterminal equipment; and the processor is further configured to determinea data volume or data volume range corresponding to the preamblereceived by the receiver according to correspondences between preamblesand data volumes or correspondences between preambles and data volumeranges and allocate the uplink transmission resource to the relayterminal equipment according to the data volume or data volume range.